These classifications in conjunction with NANDA-I diagnoses serve as the foundation for nursing process in nursing practice, education, and research.

NIC and NOC provide terms for documenting nursing care, communicating nursing care across settings, sharing data across systems, evaluating outcomes, conducting effectiveness research, measuring nursing productivity, evaluating nursing competencies, facilitating reimbursement, and determining staffing needs, designing curriculum and for inclusion in big data sets.

NIC and NOC are used internationally by nurses in acute care hospitals, outpatient and ambulatory settings, and rehabilitation and long-term care facilities.

NIC and NOC are included in electronic care planning and documentation systems. There are 10 vendors with licenses for integrating NIC/NOC into electronic software applications. 

The development of the NIC and NOC Classifications was supported by funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research and Sigma Theta Tau International. The classifications were systematically developed using research methodologies and field testing. NIC and NOC are established classifications of nursing interventions and outcomes with over 26 years of research in multiple countries.

NIC was first published in 1992. The 8th edition (2024) has 614 standardized nursing interventions and more than 13,500 nursing activities.

NOC was first published in 1997. The 7th edition (2024) has 612 nursing-sensitive patient outcomes with more than 11,500 indicators measuring concepts using 5-point Likert scales to evaluate the effectiveness of nursing interventions.

NIC and NOC are continuously refined by teams of nurse researchers, faculty, graduate students, and expert clinicians. Suggestions for refinement and new submissions are accepted from users across the world.  New interventions and outcomes are developed to reflect current practice. 

There are more than 1000 published articles in a wide range of journals describing: the development of the classifications; implementation of NIC/NOC in practice settings; use in nursing education; integration into hospital electronic systems; and effectiveness research.

There are 8 editions of Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC), 7 editions of Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC), and 3 editions of NANDA-International, NOC, and NIC Linkages, all published by Elsevier.

NIC is translated into: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.

NOC is translated into: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Editors of NIC and NOC have presented in 24 countries over the years and the classifications are used in many of the countries, some with country-wide adoption.

The Center for Nursing Classification and Clinical Effectiveness, a self-supporting center located within the University of Iowa College of Nursing, maintains and updates the NIC and NOC classifications.  The editors of NIC and NOC provide consultation for implementation into educational and practice settings, and for conducting research using NIC and NOC. 

Elsevier, our publisher, provides support to vendors and agencies for licensing and implementing NIC/NOC into electronic systems.

Licensing-  Bonita Allen at Elsevier, b.allen.1@elsevier.com

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